Thermonuclear model for x-ray transients

The thermonuclear evolution of a 1.41 M sub solar neutron star accreting both solar and metal-deficient mixtures of hydrogen, helium, and heavy elements at rates ranging from about 10-11 to 10-10 M sub solar per year is examined using a one-dimensional numerical model. The metal deficient compositions may result either from placement of the neutron star in a binary system with a Population II red giant or from gravitational settling of heavy ions in the accreted material. For such accretion rates and metallicities, hydrogen burning, mediated by the β-limited CNO cycle, is stable and leads to the accumulation of a thick helium layer with mass 1023 to 1025 g and temperature 0.7 less than or equal to T8 less than or equal to 1.2. Helium ignition occurs under extremely degenerate circumstances and is catastrophically violent. In the lower t helium shells this runaway is propagated as a convective deflagration, for the thicker layers a detonation front is set up which steepens into a strong relativistic shock wave in the neutron star envelope. In all models greatly super-Eddington luminosities in the outer layers of the neutron star lead to a sustained epoch of radiatively driven mass loss. Observationally, such models may correspond to rapid x-ray transients. The hopeless prospect for constructing a one-dimensional model for γ-ray bursts without magnetic field confinement is discussed and uncertainties pointed out in the strong screening correction for helium burning reaction